


By Corelight

by norah



Category: Coldfire
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-25
Updated: 2005-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norah/pseuds/norah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate ending for <i>Crown of Shadows</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Corelight

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to betas Fanofall, Grace, and Laylah.

The drop of blood welled dark at the tip of the Hunter's finger.

Damien stared at it. His own words, uttered just moments before, mocked him.

_"Why waste that, Gerald? It's food to you, and the strength to heal yourself. Take it, for both our sakes."_ He'd almost begged the Hunter to strengthen the bond, and now he was being offered the choice.

_I didn't go through Hell to bring you back just to see you give up now, Tarrant._ He took a deep breath and reached up, catching the Hunter by the wrist to still his hand as he leaned forward. And licked the glittering drop off that pale finger.

The copper-salt tang of blood was familiar, but the Hunter's blood was something more. It burned Damien's tongue and rushed down his spine like pure coldfire as the bond between them deepened abruptly. He hissed, clutching hard at the Hunter's wrist as he felt the channel burn through him, burrowing down to find his darkest fears and releasing them in a torrent. To his shame, Damien felt himself get hard.

He felt himself get hard, and felt himself _feel_ it, in a dizzying multiplication of his senses that left him disoriented and weirdly hungry. His skin hurt. He realized why, a moment later; the hunger wasn't _his_ hunger, but an echo coming from Tarrant, an echo that was nonetheless strong enough to come across as an urgent need through the newly strengthened bond.

He looked up, but could not meet Tarrant's eyes. The man's gaze was fixed lower, and Damien felt a rush of shame as he realized that his erection was clearly visible in the low light of the cave. He dropped the Hunter's wrist and stepped back, but it was too late.

The Hunter's nostrils flared slightly, as if scenting his fear. "You chose this, Vryce. You said _anything I needed_, and I need your fear." He moved forward, crowding Damien back against the cave wall. "And besides, you want this. I can feel it."

Well, and that was the problem, wasn't it. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry and bitter with the taste of blood, and felt the cave wall at his back, rough and solid. The Hunter was just watching him, not reaching out, not forcing the issue, but Damien felt pinned and exposed by the silver gaze alone. The fear welled up inside him, rushing, sweeping over his skin and leaving it burning cold and hot by turns, and he felt an echo of the heady satisfaction, the sensual pleasure Tarrant took as he tasted it and fed on it.

Damien shuddered.

_What have you become, that the Hunter incites such desire in you?_ He could hear his own breath, harsh in the silence of the cave. _Is this, too, in the service of your God, this depraved lust?_ His cock felt overheated, stiff and urgent, pressing against the front of his breeches, and the fear was doing nothing to diminish his arousal. If anything, the fear had become part of the arousal, part of the sick urgency the Hunter could arouse in him so easily.

When had he started to react this way? He had once believed it better to die with a clean soul than to persevere through corruption. Even when he had chosen to ally himself with Tarrant, it was because he needed the man's power, and having that force on his side was worth the risk, the taint of evil that clung to the alliance.

When had he started to need the man himself?

Sometime between their flight from the Eastern continent and their arrival at home? When he had first seen Tarrant risk his own soul to open the eyes of a misguided Patriarch to the possible future of his Church? When he had gone of his own volition into Hell, to bring Tarrant back?

"Damien."

The sound of the Hunter's voice saying his proper name shocked Damien out of his paralysis, and he re-focused on Tarrant, who had not moved. Damien could feel through the bond that the edge of the Hunter's hunger had dulled, and the pain of his burned skin had healed almost entirely. He still drank in Damien's fear avidly, but the sense of _need_ had ebbed somewhat, replaced by a tightly-wound restraint.

"The bond is ... permanent. But this need go no further."

Tarrant raised one pale hand, slowly, and Damien could not help but flinch and shiver, a cool perspiration of fear and lust breaking out on his skin as the Hunter reached out to him and cupped his jaw. Tarrant's fingers did not burn, now, but felt eerily dry and human-warm against his skin, thumb rasping against his few days of stubble.

The Hunter's word was inviolate, there was no doubt of that. If Damien needed to back down now, he would accept it with his usual grace and control, and no more would be said. Damien didn't need to look down to know that Tarrant was as hard as he was, hard and hungry and desperate. They were both desperate to even _be_ here like this. But if Damien stopped him, Tarrant would back away.

Damien closed his eyes before he spoke, trying to gain some measure of control of his own. He could feel Tarrant's hand shift as he opened his mouth to reply and he wanted to lean into it as badly as he wanted to shrink from it.

"And would it be enough?"

He knew even as he spoke that it would not, and the silence with which his words were met confirmed it. The Hunter had healed and fed, but not enough to regain his strength. And the ordeal before them would require all the strength either of them could muster. Even that might not be enough. They were probably going to die, regardless, and they would _certainly_ die if he shrank from his fear now. This choice had been made long before, when he had allied himself with the Hunter, when he had first struggled with the paradox of risking his soul in order to save his faith.

He opened his eyes again and met Tarrant's gaze. _Only and ever in Your name_, he thought. Could you offer even your damnation to your God? And then he turned his head, deliberately, into the hand cupping his jaw, and bit at the palm, lightly.

Tarrant's skin tasted faintly of salt, and Damien had only a moment to wonder at that—when had he ever seen Tarrant sweat?—before he found himself overwhelmed, lust flaring along the bond as he was pushed back against the cave wall. He almost climaxed, embarrassingly, as the Hunter's mouth met his, biting, and the echo of dual sensation fed back along the bond where their bodies met.

He was damned, and hungry for his own damnation. His hips pushed up, seeking the friction of the Hunter's body, and he felt large and awkward and ashamed of his need in the face of the other man's graceful, focused desire. Damien's fear and his shame and his lust fed on one another, and he could feel the Hunter, in turn, feed on it all, devouring his terror and need even as he devoured Damien with skilful hot kisses, taking pleasure in his fear.

This was how all those women had felt. Damien had thought it was Karril's influence, a necessary fiction the Iezu had created around the pain and suffering of those endless broken bodies in Hell to allow them both to survive. But it had been the truth. The sick dread mixed with unbearable want, the heart-stopping fear and despair that felt like a deep craving for something more—he felt it now, and knew their memories to be real.

Damien's breath was ragged, sobbing broken gasps wet against Tarrant's mouth as he shook against him, scrabbling uselessly to pull Tarrant closer even as his mind gibbered in panic. And then Tarrant's hands were there, loosening their shirts, undoing their trousers to allow skin to touch skin. At the touch of those hands, one wrapped around them both as the other braced against his hip, Damien _did_ come, jerking his hips up into the Hunter's grip hard, cock swelling and rubbing up hot and solid against Tarrant's.

He bit down as he felt himself convulse, tasting a faint trace of Tarrant's blood in his mouth, feeling the endless feedback loop that was his orgasm triggering Tarrant's own climax. This must be what it felt like to die of pleasure, to lose your self so completely inside someone else.

When it ended, the press of the Hunter's body was the only thing keeping Damien on his feet. He felt drained, empty, as though the Hunter _had_ fed on his lifeblood rather than his fear.

The last thing he had kept back he had now given up. There was nothing more to fear; they would go on, and they would either succeed or they would fail, and either way, they would likely die.

Tarrant pushed back from where he had slumped against him and Damien's knees gave way. The Hunter followed him to the cave floor. They sat together in silence as they straightened their clothing and Damien ate from their travel stores. The quiet wasn't awkward. There was just nothing more to say. They both knew what had just happened, and what it had meant.

Before they left the cave, the Hunter handed him a fist-sized bundle, which proved to be a long, filmy scarf. He showed Damien how to wrap it about his head and across his face, for protection against the volcano's fumes. "Don't take it off, for any reason," he warned. "One good lungful of Shaitan's breath can cause permanent damage."

Damien thought that "permanent" didn't feel nearly as long as it used to, under the circumstances, but he nodded. Tarrant checked the wrap once more and then bent and handed him his pack, following closely behind.

As they emerged into the new dark, Damien felt Tarrant's hand on his shoulder. Now he neither flinched nor leaned into it, but merely looked back, curious.

"Thanks," Tarrant said.

Damien inclined his head, acknowledging, and they stepped out into the looming night.

* * *

By the time he had followed Almea's shade over a bottomless abyss on an invisible bridge, Damien was feeling a bit less sanguine about the whole thing.

He watched the ghostly figure pick her way over another clump of jagged rocks, and followed gloomily after. If he lagged too far behind, she'd stop and look back for them, ruined body half-shrouded and those infinitely patient eyes gazing back as she waited for them to catch up.

It was her eyes that were the worst, Damien thought as he scrambled over yet another boulder, only to see another rise looming before him, the shade's pale figure already halfway up it. Even in the instant of her death, her eyes had held so much love. Love, and hope, and forgiveness, all shining out above the gruesome physical evidence of what Tarrant had done to her.

Damien had recognized it where Tarrant had not, and that was the really disturbing part. Because he had felt a shock of recognition, of kinship, when she'd first revealed herself to them. She'd seen ultimate evil, and given herself over to it, because she believed ... what? In Tarrant's redemption? In his love? Whatever she'd believed, her shade clung to it still, but the woman she'd been had died for it.

Damien turned back at the crown of the rise and reached down to assist Tarrant as he struggled through a particularly severe ground tremor. There was no working the fae here, not so close to the mountain, and the Hunter's clothing was grimy and his palm slippery with sweat. Damien hauled him up, admiring the man's fluid grace, even in exhaustion, before turning away again and plodding after the distant shade, which had once again turned to wait.

The irony of it all was that Tarrant was more trustworthy than any other man Damien had ever met, in his own twisted way. His existence depended on his word, after all, and he had his own reasons for keeping it. Damien had seen Tarrant suffer more than any mortal might survive to uphold his strange concept of honor. And yet how could one trust him, knowing all he had done?

Damien decided that he must be the worst sort of fool. Almea, at least, had died before the Hunter's centuries-long reign of terror over the continent. She never knew how he had become the dark nemesis of the Faith he had founded, how her once-loving husband became the nightmare of young women for generations, all his life's legacy turned sour and corrupt in the foul bargain that was his afterlife. Damien knew, all the stories and the tales and more, knew on a visceral level the kind of evil the Hunter was capable of.

And still he had bound himself in this deadly alliance. There had been reasons, of course. There were always reasons. If Calesta were not stopped, the consequences would be far more grave than the loss of one man's moral integrity. But he could not help but hope that there might be redemption in it for _both_ of them. _Bind evil to serve a worthy cause_, the Prophet had said, _and you will have altered its nature forever_.

He was not the only one who was risking himself in this. He could feel the Hunter's terror pulsing through the newly deepened bond, black and wide as the mouth of his own personal Hell. The courage it took for him to continue in the face of more than mortal fear was awe-inspiring. If what the Hunter needed to sustain himself against Calesta was something Damien could give, he knew he would give it again, regardless of the cost to his own soul.

As Almea had.

Damien looked ahead to see where the shade was leading them now and stopped in his tracks, so abruptly that the Hunter collided with him from behind. He put out a hand to steady Tarrant, still staring in horror at the shade's eyes, which held no hint of softness, but only a blank implacable hate. _When had Calesta switched the shades? Where was the true one? How long had they been following the wrong path?_ The false shade beckoned them on, but Damien shook his head.

"This is wrong, Gerald. That's not Almea anymore."

The Hunter, of course, couldn't tell; he hadn't understood what Damien had seen in the first place to make him trust the shade, and he couldn't see the difference now. But he was willing to trust, and Damien was willing to risk.

When Karril appeared to block him, in the instant before he would have walked into the trap, both those instincts proved true.

The journey felt safer, if not easier, after the Iezu joined them, but nothing could keep them safe once they had reached Shaitan's summit.

Damien would have walked through lava and searched through Hell a thousand times over to stave off the pain he felt as the Hunter defied Calesta and opened himself to the fae. It came in waves, the black sickness of corruption and evil that Tarrant used to lure the Iezu, then the knowledge of his choice, his sacrifice, too little and too late to earn him redemption in the eyes of God, then at last the burning pain as the power of the mountain rushed through him, charring the bond to ash and destroying the Hunter utterly.

Damien could no longer feel him at all, and he knelt in despair on the harsh stones of Shaitan's flanks and mourned.

* * *

Of course, a man like Gerald Tarrant couldn't die simply.

Damien's head was still reeling from the revelations of the night before—alien spaceship, creation of the Iezu, a damaged but miraculously revived Tarrant—and now this. It had been the first heart attack that had frightened Tarrant into paying an unspeakable price for his immortality; to have the second come so soon after his return to humanity seemed the cruelest of injustices.

"Anything, Karril!" he pleaded with the Iezu. "The currents here are too strong for me to Heal with. Is there any way you can help? If not," Damien looked at Tarrant, whose lips were faintly blue, "he'll die."

The Iezu drew in a deep breath. "I can try," he said, and disappeared.

Damien bent to his work. The fae was elusive, even with Karril's careful channeling. He reached for it, again and again, only to have it slip away from him, as Tarrant gasped and time grew shorter. Damien threw his whole self into the effort, opening himself wide to the fae, and felt it at the edge of his grasp. He could sense that there would be a terrible price to pay for this Working, but a glance at Tarrant, laboring for breath, was enough to decide him.

_I can't rob him of the chance to make his peace with God now, not after he saved us all on Shaitan. Not even to save my own skin._ And as though the fae could hear his thoughts, it came roaring through him, wild and hot and unlike any fae current he had Worked before. He thought he might drown in it, but after a few moments he was able to wrestle it into a Workable form and begin the Seeing he needed to do in order to Heal.

He didn't know how long he was immersed in the current, making careful and minute adjustments to the workings of Tarrant's heart, correcting the congenital deformities, removing the buildup, encouraging the body to heal itself and dispose of the excess matter. When he finally withdrew, he was shaking and his whole body was covered in a fine sweat.

He placed one hand on Tarrant's chest and felt that perfect heartbeat for a moment before he staggered up and over to a nearby promontory to relieve himself. When he returned, Tarrant had struggled to a sitting position, and was taking deep, steady breaths.

"It seems," he rasped, "that I owe you once again."

Damien shrugged. "Yeah. And you took me traveling to new and different places. Let's just call it even." He looked at Tarrant more closely. "What's wrong?" For a man rescued from the brink of death, he seemed more upset than pleased to be alive.

"I tried to watch you Heal," Tarrant said quietly. "I couldn't. Something's _wrong_, Vryce."

Damien shrugged. "You were halfway to death for the second time in a day, Tarrant. Go take a piss—I know that diuretic must have worked through your system by now—and try another Working of your own."

He didn't take the Hunter's concerns seriously until Tarrant returned, and he saw the look on his face.

"I've Worked the fae for a thousand years," he said, heavily, "and it's never failed to respond like this."

Something was wrong with the fae. It hadn't just been his own difficulty Working, it was happening to Tarrant too. Damien looked about for Karril - perhaps the Iezu would know what had happened - and realized that he had not rematerialized after the Working.

"Karril?" he called. "Karril, are you there?"

The air shimmered and blurred, forming slowly into an exhausted Karril. He seemed to have difficulty holding on to the fae-semblance, and it shifted and moved disconcertingly, making Damien feel vaguely sick if he tried to focus. "Karril! What happened? What's wrong?"

The Iezu smiled. "Too long away from my temple, and I've been a bit busy. I don't suppose you've got anything to take pleasure in?" His tone was light, but it was plain that the final shaping of the fae for Tarrant's Healing had exhausted the last of his resources. He spared a wry glance for the jagged rocks, the smouldering ground, the dirty and exhausted faces of the two men.

Damien felt Tarrant approach as Karril spoke, but he still startled when warm breath ghosted over the back of his neck, and warm lips fastened briefly on the lobe of one ear. "What do you say, Vryce? Have we got anything to take pleasure in?"

He was so tired, but the Hunter's touch sent a jolt through him nonetheless. He hadn't really thought that this would be something that Tarrant would want, now that he no longer needed blood or fear to survive, hadn't considered it now that their bond had been severed and Tarrant was human once more. But now Tarrant was offering.

Long arms slid over his chest, encouraging him to lean back, and Damien knew what his answer would be.

"I think we can find something," and it was hard not to laugh at the shock on Karril's face. He felt the Hunter's hands busy themselves with the buttons of his shirt, deftly undoing them, burrowing underneath and running warm over his skin, and he blushed even as he felt his nipples harden and his cock respond. He looked at the Iezu, who was watching them avidly, and blurted out, "But could you not ... watch? I mean, so I can't see you watching?" His face flamed.

He saw Karril's grin at the same time as he heard Tarrant's low laughter by his ear, and felt his shirt being pulled away from his chest. "Are you sure you don't want an audience?"

Damien squirmed, trying to pull free of his entangling shirt so he could glare at Tarrant, sputtering incoherently. Karril chuckled, but took pity on him and disappeared. He was probably still there in his natural state, whatever that was, but Damien found it easier not to think about it this way. He yanked at his arms and freed one from a sleeve, enough to let him turn and face Tarrant.

Who looked his usual calm and unruffled self, though the color in his cheekbones and the rapidity of his breathing were new indicators of his true state. Damien stripped the other sleeve off and stood bare-chested, staring back at Tarrant, challenging him.

"Is this what you want?"

Tarrant seemed surprised that Damien would even ask. He raised his eyebrows and looked over Damien's shoulder. "Karril's a good friend."

"Gerald. _Is this what you want?_" Damien didn't know why the question was so important to him, but it hung in the air between them like a faeborn thing, given substance of its own in the asking.

Damien knew _he_ wanted it, God help him. He was already hard and aching from a simple touch, and he couldn't pretend it was necessity or altruism or a side-effect of the bond this time. He wanted Gerald Tarrant, this newly re-made man before him, for reasons that had nothing to do with Karril or the Church or anything beyond his own desire. It remained to be seen if Tarrant would say the same.

Tarrant, however, said nothing. Perversely, Damien wished the bond between them still held, so that he might have some idea what the other man was thinking.

And then Tarrant reached out, and ran a hand down Damien's chest, hooking the waistband of his trousers and drawing him in. Damien stumbled forward and almost knocked Tarrant over - he always felt too large and bulky in comparison to that wiry strength - but caught himself in time. And Tarrant licked up his neck, hot and wet, making Damien's hips jerk involuntarily at the feeling, and muttered, "I offered, didn't I?"

And that was as much as he was going to get, Damien realized. He could feel Tarrant's erection against his own, and that was enough to assure him of the sincerity of the intent. He tangled one hand in Tarrant's hair and pulled him up to kiss him thoroughly, a warm exploration of tongues that set a slow fire in his belly as his other hand started in on the buttons and clasps of Tarrant's clothing.

It felt nothing like the desperate need of their first encounter. It was difficult to believe that this had first happened a little more than a day ago; it had been a lifetime, for Tarrant, and the world itself had shifted somehow in the interim, so perhaps it was only reasonable that this should be different as well.

This time they were both tired, and human, and there was no channel, no bond or certainty of imminent death between them. Mutual need and mutual comfort guided them as they rid each other of their clothing, though material comfort proved difficult to find on the rough ground. In the end, they made do with a nest of their own discarded clothes and clung together, moving slowly in tired exquisite friction, trading gasps and the restless roam and clutch of needy hands.

Damien forgot about their invisible audience, marveling in the heat of the Hunter's skin—not the Hunter, now, but a man, capable of redemption. Breath and blood and bone like any other, shaking and arching underneath his hands. When Tarrant came apart at last, moaning and shivering and coming wet between them, Damien felt something in him break apart, and he bit down on Tarrant's shoulder and thrust into the damp heat between them until he came, too.

He fell into a kind of post-coital reverie, then, warm and sated with the feel of Tarrant's even pulse beneath his hand. But eventually Tarrant groaned and shifted, rubbing at his hip where the uneven ground had made sharp indentations, and Damien was forced to sit up.

Tarrant looked mussed, his lips swollen and hair in disarray, and he was contemplating the wet stickiness of his stomach with the kind of distaste felines reserve for water. Damien managed to maintain a straight face as fished about on the ground for one of the filmy headscarves, which he handed to Tarrant for cleanup.

Tarrant dabbed at the mess on his belly, wadding up the scarf and scrubbing at his skin, and handed the messy fabric back to Damien gingerly. He uncurled from the ground and stood up, wincing, to gather his clothes. Damien, cleaning himself off in turn, could not help his laughter now, as he saw Tarrant pawing mournfully at the wrinkles in his trousers.

He heard his laughter echoed from behind himself, and turned to see Karril emerging from behind a large rock. The Iezu's fae-semblance was solid now, and he modestly averted his eyes while Damien struggled into his own trousers.

Something was still very wrong with the fae, no matter how amusing Tarrant's sartorial distress might be, and they needed to figure out what was going on. Fully dressed, Damien turned again to Karril.

"Karril, something strange is happening to the fae. Could you feel it, when I did the Healing?"

Tarrant added, from his seat on the ground, as he pulled on his boots, "Something's changed, no doubt about it. I can't tell for certain what happened without some more specific tests, but I don't think either of us will be able to Work until we get out of here. Once we get back, I can figure out what happened, and hopefully discover a way to work around it."

* * *

Tarrant was still brushing futilely at his clothing as they emerged from the tunnel to the castle, hours later. The once-rich fabrics were ruined, dirt and cobwebs overlaying tears and singe marks from Shaitan's embers, and still he fussed, unable to let go of the fastidious appearance he had maintained through the fae for lifetimes.

But the appearance of his study stilled his hands.

His love of knowledge trumped his love of cleanliness, it appeared, because he started gathering up as much as he could, right away, sorting it all into stacks, hands almost shaking with urgency. Half of it was nearly unsalvageable, but he sorted through what he could, making a collection of legible pages and books, stained and torn and smeared with foul matter though they might be.

Every few moments, he stopped, and Damien could tell he was attempting a Locating, anything that might help, but the fae remained out of reach and Tarrant resumed his frantic sorting. Damien tried to help, picking through the debris for intact pages and sifting through books to see if they pertained to demonology. He was unearthing a manuscript from what appeared to be a pile of dried offal when he heard heavy footsteps approach and the door opened.

The lantern-light was blinding at first, to eyes accustomed to the gloom, and Tarrant threw up a hand to shield himself. "Who are you? How did you get through the wards?"

As his vision cleared, Damien gasped. "Oh my God. Who the hell...?"

The man who looked like Gerald Tarrant ignored Damien, and swung his springbolt up to fix on Tarrant himself, who was frozen in stunned disbelief. A stained page fell from his hand and floated to the floor as he breathed, "Andrys."

Damien dropped the book he held and moved to stand between Tarrant and the intruder, edging in close enough to foul a straight shot. "Who is this, Gerald?"

The stranger answered for him. "Andrys Tarrant, last living descendant of that murderer's family line." His voice was bitter and his eyes were inflamed with a madness born of incalculable pain. "I don't know who you are," he snapped at Damien, "and I don't care. But I've got two bolts loaded, and so help me God, if you don't move out of my way, one of them's for you."

Damien couldn't move. If he stepped away now, he would destroy any chance of redemption Tarrant had gained by his sacrifice on Shaitan. He would lose humanity its best chance at true communication with the mother of the Iezu. And he would be damned as surely as though they had failed in the Rahklands, on the Eastern continent, on Shaitan, because what righteous man would betray his friend like that?

He reached for the fae and felt it slip away from him, unWorkable. There was no way to stop the springbolt except with his body. _God, don't let it end like this, please. Give him a chance to come back to You._ From behind him he heard Tarrant say, "It's over, Andrys. You've won."

Damien could hear them arguing, hear Tarrant telling his many times great-grandson that Calesta was dead (and what did Calesta have to do with this? Damien saw Andrys flinch visibly at the revelation, but didn't understand why) and that revenge would taint his future irrevocably. He heard Tarrant's words, but his attention remained fixed on Andry's hands, which tensed and shook on the trigger of the springbolt.

"You killed them," Andrys whispered, and Damien could hear the pain in his voice. "My brothers, my sister, all of them. God damn you to Hell! You deserve to die!" His voice rose to a shriek and Damien caught the jerk of his finger a moment before the bolt was released. He had time to move, just a fraction of a second, and then he felt the impact of it in his side, the dull crunch of splintering bone and the radiating waves of pain.

He slumped to the ground, vision darkening around the edges. The last thing he saw was Andrys Tarrant, screaming insults as he raised the springbolt again. And then the world dissolved into flame and darkness.

* * *

He awoke to a dull pain in his side and Tarrant leaning over him.

"Can you walk? I'm afraid the Healing was ... a bit perfunctory, perhaps. I haven't been able to touch the fae that way in centuries. But we need to hurry."

"Touch the fae?" Damien struggled up into a sitting position, disoriented. "What ... what happened to Andrys?" The room was empty except for the two of them, and the door was shut. He reached down to where his side ached and his hand came back wet with blood.

"Gerald, what happened?"

Tarrant hooked his hands under Damien's arms and pulled him up. "Vryce, I'll explain it all once we get going, but the essence of it is, I've figured out how to access the fae. And we need to leave. Now."

Damien stood and reeled, light-headed from loss of blood. He touched his side again, in wonder, and then staggered as Tarrant pushed a large bundle of papers and books at him. "Take these," Tarrant ordered, scooping up a similar bundle from the nearby table. "Follow me."

Damien complied in a daze, leaving the wreckage of the workshop behind a Gerald Tarrant who was very much alive. Once they had gained the fetid dark of the tunnel, Tarrant spoke in low tones.

"The fae have ... re-patterned themselves somehow. In order to work them, sacrifice is still necessary, but it must be self-sacrifice, perfect altruism, to allow even an Adept to Work." He came to a recessed area Damien had not seen on the way in and turned into it, opening the small door hidden there.

"There are many ways out of this castle." Tarrant lifted a lantern awkwardly from the collection hanging inside the door, cursed, and put down his burden to light it manually, using flint and tinder from the shelf below.

 

"As you can see, the ability to Work is fleeting and dependent on context even then. Your idiotic self-sacrifice," he continued, picking up both lantern and bundle, "allowed me to Work the fae to show my descendant his possible futures, and where revenge would truly lead. He chose to abstain."

Damien followed the bobbing lantern light as Tarrant set off down the new tunnel, which was damp and roughly made, with roots dangling through the ceiling here and there. He shuddered as they brushed against his shoulders, and hurried to catch up.

"But I saw fire," he insisted. "I saw him raise his springbolt, and then I saw fire."

"I'm not saying there wasn't a certain amount of self-defense involved, first," Tarrant admitted. "But there was enough sacrifice in that room to allow for multiple workings. Between your taking that bolt for me, my renunciation of my title and holdings, and Andrys relinquishing his revenge, the air in there fairly stank with selflessness."

"You renounced your title?"

"I could hardly hold onto it, under the circumstances. I no longer have the power—or, to be truthful, the will—to resist the Church. Better to break cleanly and give young Andrys something to live for." Tarrant sounded casual, but Damien was not fooled. "I Worked an illusion, a semblance of my severed head, for him to take back to the troops. I imagine my death is being celebrated somewhere above us even now."

Damien shuddered. "And the Healing?"

"It was the least I could do, and I did it as soon—and as well—as I could. I'm afraid I'm a bit out of practice. I only wish there had been enough time for a Locating as well; the fae was beginning to slip away from me toward the end."

So Tarrant had chosen to Heal Damien rather than perform the Locating he so desperately needed on his books and papers. Damien supposed he should feel guilty, but he was too preoccupied with being grateful to be alive, and with absorbing all the new information Tarrant was giving him.

Altruism and self-sacrifice were the new keys to the fae. Tarrant had killed off the Hunter and the Neocount of Merentha and the Prophet with one Working, and they were escaping with the better part of his library on demonology into a strange new world they had helped to create.

Ignoring the pain in his side, Damien hoisted his bundle higher and hurried after Tarrant, whose long legs had taken him further ahead. The tunnel began to rise.

"Gerald."

Tarrant turned slightly, and Damien could see his exhaustion and pain written in the set of his shoulders, though he let none of it show on his face.

"Thank you."

Tarrant nodded gravely. "I owed you."

"So you did."

* * *

They took four of the true horses and little more; the books and papers Tarrant had managed to save from the wreckage of his study filled the packs of both of the brood mares, and they left the rest of the castle's contents behind. They could hear, at the other side of the castle, the Church troops making some sort of commotion, and see a thick column of smoke rising over the rooftop, but Tarrant turned grimly away.

They rode out quickly, into the dark of a world that no longer followed its own internal laws. Trees shone with a slimy luminescent mould, decaying at an unnatural rate, and things writhed among their roots. The air smelled stale, and the ground was thick with weedy underbrush that caught at the horses' hocks and occasionally seemed to move or rustle on its own. Damien tried not to look too closely at any of it. Twice, they heard the sound of wolf-like howling in the distance, and Tarrant reached instinctively for the sword he no longer carried before urging his horse onward, faster than before.

They were a long way into the Forest before he spoke again.

"We'll need an inn tonight, and food." His voice was tight and betrayed no hint of what he was feeling. "Have you any money left?"

Damien felt for the purse at his belt. Calesta had made it impossible to spend the rest of the coins the Patriarch had given him in the towns on their journey; more than half the amount was left. "Enough for several days, at least. Enough to get us both to Jaggonath, probably, if that's what you had in mind."

Though God knew what either of them would do after that. His resignation from the Church had separated him from the only vocation he'd ever known, and with the new inaccessibility of the fae, even his meagre skills at Healing were no longer an asset. Perhaps he'd eke out a living as a hired sword. And as for Tarrant ... well, he wasn't much better off. The Church was hardly an option, his ability to Work the fae was gone, and the Forest he had called home for centuries was rotting around them even as they rode.

"What _did_ you have in mind?" Damien asked, after a few more minutes of riding broken only by the sound of the horses' hooves. "Will you go back to Shaitan and look for Karril?"

"What would you say to paying Ciani a visit?" Tarrant sounded diffident, and his attention was fixed on the path ahead of him. "I thought she might be able to contribute some of her knowledge to the Iezu translation project, even though her records were lost."

Was that an invitation? Damien urged his mount up alongside Tarrant's. "Both of us? To the Rahklands again? You've got a strange idea of a vacation, Gerald. I believe last time we were there, you nearly died. Are you so fond of your new mortality that you feel the need to risk it constantly?"

Tarrant shot him a sour look. "It would seem so, wouldn't it?"

They rode in silence for another hour or two, until the unrelenting darkness of the Forest began to break up, light filtering in through the branches here and there. They emerged into a watery morning light, near a cultivated field. No people were in the area to see them exit the Forest, and they quickly found a stream and cleaned up as best they could, burying the worst of Tarrant's clothing in the soft earth of the banks and attempting to look like weary travelers, rather than nightmarish apparitions.

The innkeepers at the next town still looked at them askance, but between the Patriarch's coin and the noonday sun high overhead, they were granted a room, stalls for the horses, and a bath. A few more negotiations and quite a few more coins convinced the innkeeper's wife to send up plain fare for their afternoon meal, and take their clothing to be mended and washed.

Damien wrapped himself up in a sheet and toweled his hair vigorously, watching as Tarrant scrubbed at himself for the third time with the harsh inn soap. "You won't get Working-clean no matter how many times you lather, Gerald," he pointed out as kindly as he could. Tarrant ducked his head under one last time and came up sputtering.

"I don't suppose you'd consider sacrificing yourself again for the sake of my cleanliness," he replied, climbing dripping from the tub and wrapping himself in the remaining towel.

"I'm afraid not. But I might just be mad enough to accompany you to the Rahklands, if you still want the company. You're liable to get yourself killed on your own." Damien made the offer the same way the invitation had been extended, with a false diffidence, as though it would be the same to him either way.

Tarrant stared at him, caught by surprise and dripping onto the floor. "You won't go back to the Church, then?"

"I doubt they'd have me, Gerald. And if you will, well, then, I'll follow you." Damien held his breath as Tarrant fixed his towel deliberately about his waist and stalked gracefully over to stand before him.

"All right, then." Tarrant smiled.

Damien felt something in his chest ease. "All right."


End file.
